


Love Lies Sleeping

by Tammany



Series: The Sussex Downs [17]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Gen, Holmes Brothers, M/M, Mash-up, Other, Watching Someone Sleep, contemplating immortality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 11:13:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20692583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: For the record, I tend to see angels and demons in human-ish bodies as having real use for food, water, air, shelter from the elements, and, yes, sleep--even if they can also make choices about doing without. And I can't begin to imagine Crowley not choosing to sleep with his angel, or Aziraphale passing up the luxury of then opting to share that sleep with his dear boy.And I see neither of them as being particularly stealthy about it: perhaps a cover-miracle to avert the eyes of strangers and enemies. Beyond that--if neighbors get an eyeful, so what?So...Wherein Mycroft Gets an Eyeful, and Sherlock Provides Commentary





	Love Lies Sleeping

They looked like a Pre-Raphaelite painting. Angel and demon, curled together, wings evident, posed to frame each other. They lay dozing in an eroded cradle of chalk, marked out with streaks of near-black flint. They were, Mycroft noted, ungendered today.

Aziraphale was softened beyond zir normal light layer of pudge, seeming radiantly cherubic. A baby putto, not the kind of cherub Mycroft has come to suspect ze really is: many-winged, argus-eyed, four-faced solar spirit set to guard this world.

Crowley’s lean, stark form and features were also softened, but seemed less childish than fey—and even ungendered ze was far from sexless. Ze could, Mycroft thought, walk through a convocation of celibates and set the house on fire and all the members of either sex throbbing. Pun intended. Mycroft couldn’t decide if it was a matter of demonic nature, or just that the demon seems designed by God herself to call to the inner longings of humankind. Even sexless, crotch bare and spare and obviously built with chastity in mind, Crowley remains “sex-lies-sleeping.” The slender limbs and body muscled like a juvenile swimmer still evoke more adult pleasures. Especially when cradling the more innocent angel in zir arms

There was certainly a level of physicality to the relationship—and an aura of romantic extremes that seemed both alien to zeir spiritual selves, and at the same time perhaps the only appropriate way for Celestial and Infernal beings to love. It would take so much depth of love to weather infinity. Myroft could not believe these two could separate in the ashes of a burned out love without both spirits shattering.

He studied the way body bent into body, itching to grab a pencil and see if he had any knack left for portraiture. He forced himself to discipline. At the very least, he would ask permission to sketch zem the next time zey lay sleeping in the sun, in a fold of the white chalk cliffs. He had, somehow, no doubt zey would do so again, and leave zemselves visible to at least those mortal neighbors zey’d chosen to trust with zeir true natures.

The angel curved in, head on zir lover’s breast, hand resting on Crowley’s flat, smooth chest. Zer upper leg hooked over Crowley’s knees, lush and plush and tender, foot nestling between the demon’s shins. Crowley, in turn, lay under zer lover, head turned down, face pressed into the riot of silver-gold hair. Zer own cascade of deep, slightly sooty red flowed over the demon's neck and shoulders and stirred at the angel’s breath. Crowley's lower arm slipped under Aziraphale’s neck, hand disappearing under the mound of dense, short white feathers that hid where wings joined body. Zir upper arm clung firmly around Aziraphale’s waist, possessive. Zeir wings were folded—but relaxed, falling loose. Crowley’s jet primaries brushed both angel and demon’s feet. Aziraphale’s white curved just enough—just a trace, so that the upper line of bone cupped zir shoulder, and shaded Crowley’s fingers where they held firm at his angel's waist.

The wind from the ocean stirred over them, ruffling feathers, sending Aziraphale’s blizzard of cow-licks fluttering, stirring the heavy burgundy waves of Crowley’s glory. The angel and demon stirred, too, never quite entirely still, never really active. Aziraphale’s fingers stroked Crowley’s clavicle. Crowley shifted and kissed his beloved’s hair, a smile coming and going peacefully as the kisses themselves.

“What are you looking at? Prurient as ever, no doubt.” Sherlock just could not resist getting a jab in. Mycroft sighed softly to himself, but pointed.

“I think perhaps not prurient. Nosy I am forced to concede.”

He was gratified to hear the little suck of breath, as Sherlock followed his brother’s pointing finger. “Oh.”

“Mmmmm. Painfully beautiful. Millais, do you think, or Burne-Jones?”  
  
“Millais could do Crowley. I’d actually think perhaps May Sandys for Aziraphale, though. Her portraits captured a certain sweetness of face. But—I do think Siddal has to have been Crowley’s kin. She’d make a terrifyingly beautiful demon.”

The two brothers stayed where they were on the beach, watching their immortal neighbors sleep.

“Do you think—do you think that kind of relationship is possible for mere humans?” Sherlock asked, finally, voice unexpectedly fragile.

“I don’t know,” Mycroft said. “Echoes of it, maybe? I know that I see them, and I think of Greg. And—in a very different way, of you.”

“Mmmm.”

“You’re thinking of your Janine, yes? And John?”

Sherlock snorted. “Don’t guess, brother-mine. It doesn’t suit you.” He paused, then said, more gently, “Actually, I was thinking of Mary. What John and I both lost when we lost her. Do you think—is there really an afterlife?”

“I haven’t dared ask them.”

“I can see why.”

They were silent for a good ten minutes. Then Mycroft said, “I have to ask them if I can sketch them the next time they fall asleep up there.”

Sherlock’s face shifted. Mischief bloomed, and Mycroft could see a tart comment about his lack of talent coming.

Then his brother stopped, and shook his head.

“Oh, bugger,” he said, resigned, and smiled at Mycroft. “Do it, Mike. I’d like to see the result. You used to have some talent, if I recall correctly.”

“I think I shall, then,” Mycroft said, not realizing how much he sounded like a chipper angel accepting a temptation with happy glee. “Now—let’s let sleeping Celestials lie. It’s time to come up with something for dinner, and the cupboard is a bit bare.”

“That’s what pizza delivery is for,” Sherlock said. “Or Chinese. Or Thai.”

And they ambled away together, leaving the angel and the demon to zeir rest.


End file.
